The small port town of Waterhorse sits on the edge of the dark forest, which has spawned folklore and fear for years. The night is dangerous. The seas are home to numerous perils. The 'Heathen North' is a land of barbarous pagans... But the Inns and pubs of Waterhorse are inviting, and home to a number of lively characters.
~~~~~Regularly Updates Thursdays~~~~~

Welcome to Waterhorse

The small port town of Waterhorse sits on the edge of the dark forest, which has spawned folklore and fear for years. The night is dangerous. The seas are home to numerous perils. The 'Heathen North' is a land of barbarous pagans... But the Inns and pubs of Waterhorse are inviting, and home to a number of lively characters.
~~~~~Regularly Updates Thursdays~~~~~

Latest Comic:

November 2nd, 2009, 3:56 pm

Hello Fans, you may have noticed we seem to be on hiatus. If you were a fan on facebook, you would be privy to such info ;) just become a fan of Irishwastrel's Waterhorse and you'll be in the know.

Yes, we are on hiatus, because of school once again. I have only ever gone on hiatus once before in the two years we've been online, so I figure it's all good. I'll be bringing it online again in December when my semester ends. I'm a senior in college you see, and I have a lot going on! I know the suspense is killing you but at least I didn't really end with a cliffhanger.

February 14th, 2009, 12:53 am

If there are any Waterhorse fans out there who also are on facebook, be sure to become a fan of 'Irishwastrel's Waterhorse' page! I will post notices of things like delays or hiatuses, and also field any questions you might have.

You'll know it when you see it, look up 'Irishwastrel's Waterhorse' and when you see that with the comic's logo, click become a fan and join the party!

January 1st, 2009, 3:12 am

A year has gone by since I began posting Waterhorse comics. I have about 47 pages so I only missed about 5 weeks or so... and those were holidays and the short May hiatus that i had to do because of the awful science class I had.

In the past, I would come up with grandiose stories I wanted to tell, great things to put into them. However, my tendency was to waver between genres that I was interested in at the moment. My inconsistency and inability to focus on one story left heaps of stories unfinished on my hard drive. My lack of patience hindering my creativity, as it were.

I thought about this problem.. Where was I going wrong? I'll tell you. I was unsure of myself and where my interests lied. I fluctuated between futuristic, paranormal, occult mystery, historical fiction, psychological horror and all sorts of other genres. What I always came back to though was the medieval genre. About 1 1/2 years ago Waterhorse began to take shape. It was dramatically different than it is now. I remember I was in Eagle River on vacation. I said to my cousin David "I want to create a story, something lasting. I think the trick may be to create the world before the characters." He said "Create a character with the world." I created a town.

The first real incarnation of Waterhorse involved werewolves. A town surrounded by dark woods with dark roads that connected to other towns. The woods were full of werewolves. It was wise to travel with unicorns, as their horns were made of silver and kept the wolves away. The only characters i had in mind was an arrogant gypsy minstrel... and a clumsy stableman.

To the opposite of my original intention the world was the thing that morphed. The town became Waterhorse, and the werewolves confined to the legend of Lychan, Lych, and Luminerva. I got the idea to start out with a folkloric story that would have an impact on the real story from reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The story with the hallows was fascinating, as it was told like an old fairy tale but it had real world application to them. I loved that. The other elements of Waterhorse sprang forward from my massive collection of occult mythology and celtic/Russian/African folklore. I learned about creatures and practices that were important to the ancient peoples and warped them into my own creation, with hopes of achieving some level of storytelling that Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy and a personal icon) would appreciate.

So after one year of posting, I would like to thank mr. Mike Mignola for showing me what I am interested in and how to make it original. I would like to thank Kevin Bley (mrbob0822) for introducing me to the webcomic scene, teaching me how to do art digitally, and for actually reading my comic every week. I would like to thank Sting for recording 'Shallow Brown' on the album 'Rogue's gallery: Pirate ballads, sea songs & chanties' for inspiring the character of Wasp, Trudy Cooper for Hamish's nose, and the show 'Lost' because.. I really really like it.

December 24th, 2008, 11:32 am

Hello all, as you may have noticed (but probably not) I don't usually upload a comic on holidays. July 4 and Thanksgiving there was nothing posted, and I haven't really missed any other weeks except for last years May hiatus, but that was because of school. I have a page almost done, but I don't think I'll get time to finish it before tomorrow, so it looks like christmas is out. I will be uploading a new page next week, not necessarily as late as thursday, so it could go up on the weekend or even monday. Rest assured, I will continue posting pages regularly, any discrepancies are based on extenuating circumstances and will be rectified in a timely manner. I've got years of material mapped out.

Bear with me on these pesky holidays, I know you're thinking 'oh no, Waterhorse is late shall I go on with my life?' or 'My God without Waterhorse this week dare I ever love again?'

October 15th, 2008, 11:33 pm

Greetings to those who check the news section of my fair little webcomic.

Let's talk about art. You may have realized there were a few shifts in style over the life of this comic.

I learned a new style of shading and coloring lately from a fantastic book called "Fantasy Clip Art" and am employing that lately. No more 'mario castles' and flat colors. A panel a few weeks back where they cross the bridge was just abismal. If I don't have time, I'll just do one panel (the Sarafina panel is an example) or I will hold off a week. NO more laziness. To any who may be wondering, I do have a fully outlined plot and everything in the story has purpose, I'm not just flying by the seat of my pants.

July 10th, 2008, 2:38 pm

Greetings loyal and admittedly small cluster of 'Horse readers, summer is in full swing. Some of you may have noted that there was no comic for the holiday weekend. This can be contributed as much to lazyness as anything, but seeing that it was a holiday I was able to make it look less.. lazy.. And by admitting this I've lost all credibility in the matter.

Hellboy 2 comes out tomorrow, which makes it a TRUE holiday weekend for me, as I loooovee hellboy. Hellboy comics are being released in very nice 'library editions' via amazon, which preserves them in their greatness far better than the trade paperbacks that I have because let's face it, this one's hardcover, bigger, and fancy lookin'. It looks like my Calvin and Hobbes complete set. Mike Mignola and Hellboy have a noticable influence on Waterhorse. I have used his ingenious blending of folklore and personally crafted storytelling and fiction to intertwine these actual folkloric stories and place them in a world of my own design. So if you are a fan of Waterhorse, you'd probably be a fan of Mignola's excellent comic series Hellboy and the spinoff BPRD and the new TPB of Abe Sapien stories that is coming out in fall. I'm going to see HBII twice this weekend so it's going to rock.